Origen

In early use commute meant ‘to interchange two things’. Its source is Latin commutare, from com- ‘together’ and mutare ‘to change’, the root of English words such as moult (Late Middle English), mutant (early 19th century), and permutation (Late Middle English). The modern meaning, ‘to travel between home and your place of work’, comes from commutation ticket. This was the American term for a season ticket, where a number of daily fares were ‘commuted’ to, or changed into, a single payment. The Americans have been commuting since the 1860s, but the term did not make its way over to Britain until the 1930s.